Thursday, February 7, 2013

Review Time! : FTL

So I recently, and by recently I mean every time this happens, I lost all my money to a steam sale. Now I have way too many games to play. So in order to get me motivated on playing them and to give me some articles to write I'm going to start reviewing them! On to the article!

FTL: Faster Than LightWhat is it?:The way I've been describing FTL to most people is Oregon Trail in space. That sounds odd but in the game you are controlling a spacecraft with a crew and you are being chased by rebels trying to obtain the information on your ship. Your job is to reach your final destination as quick as possible with out being caught or running out of fuel. Simple right? Kinda...along the way you encounter other ships, both good and bad, and other obstacles to hinder or help your journey.How does it play?:

As I said before you are in control of ship and crew, you take control in a number of ways.

Crew: You are able to move the crew members from room to room, in the rooms the either run the equipment (like in the Ships hull where someone is needed to pilot) or repair any damage sustained from your journey (say after a battle with another ship).

Ship: You are able to control all aspects of the ship starting with what gets power and what doesn't. You have a limited amount of allotted power your job is to determine what is needed at any given moment, do you really need your engines running or do u need those shields at full power? You also have access to the doors so you can do nifty things like opening the airlock to put out a fire.

You start on a point and from there you choose where you want to go next. Each jump costs one fuel and you have a limited amount, there are stores where you can buy many things from more fuel to more crew members.

After you have picked your next destination you will warp there. When you arrive you usually will get a triggered event, usually an event like you see a ship in distress will you help, its you job to make your choice and then react accordingly.

This whole game is in real time so you do need to constantly micro while making choices, to sit and wait around is to lose your ship.

After you finish your encounter you have more options the main one being upgrade your ship. You collect currency in game which is used to purchase things from the store or cna be used to buy upgrades. You always have access to the upgrade menu and you can get one of a few things: more allotted energy, upgraded power for any of your current systems, or one of a few miscellaneous power ups.

How does it hold up against games like it?:
To be honest I don't know any games like this so...yea gonna leave this blank...Final thoughts:
This game is great, I've been playing it quite frequently as of late. It is a full enough game for a decent gaming session and also easy enough to just pop on for 20 minutes and leave. The retro graphics lend to the whole feel of it and there is so much to unlock and so many achievements that it lends itself to ton of replays (not to mention the random nature of the games)

Over all I recommend it, and at 10 dollars (and on sale all the time) this is one Kickstarter game you really need to try.